


Ethereal Encounters

by arysthaeniru



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Gen, Golden Age (Narnia)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:00:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26313802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arysthaeniru/pseuds/arysthaeniru
Summary: 5 Meetings Lucy Has With Strange Gods (And 1 She Has With An Old Friend)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 38
Collections: Narnia Fic Exchange 2020





	Ethereal Encounters

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hydrangea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hydrangea/gifts).



_1\. The First Fruit Tree_

In the first spring equinox of the Golden Age, there’s very little celebrating done to mark its passing. Instead, Lucy and her siblings spend the day tilling the soil, in an ongoing effort of teaching Narnians how to work the Earth and grow crops again for their own food. 

After years of living off whatever magical rations the Witch provided and whatever dumb beasts could be hunted, none of the Narnians know how to plant seeds nor nurture them, nor harvest them either. 

Thank goodness Susan had been in training to be a Land Girl, and that Peter and Edmund’s training to be strong enough to lift a sword properly, also translated to being strong enough to use a hoe properly. Their skills are good enough to teach everybody, but Peter’s got a different idea. He wants them to teach farming to a few reliable people, so eventually, those first few would go on to teach it to others, so it would eventually spread all over Narnia, without the new Kings and Queens of Narnia having to travel everywhere. 

Teaching is difficult though, especially to creatures without opposable thumbs, so all of her siblings are quite busy with that, which means Lucy is left to actually plant the seeds. 

It’s a different kind of tiring work, mostly because it involves so much planning. Lucy has to remember exactly what seeds are in which bag, and remember how far apart each seed has to be, depending on what type of plant it is. Carrots and turnips can grow close together, because they dig deep into the Earth, and therefore don’t compete for space on the land too much, but vines like grapes, or large trees like oranges and apples have to be spaced apart, so they have room to grow without killing each other. 

Considering Lucy is in charge of about fifty-five different seed bags, it’s an awful lot to remember. 

It’s almost dinner time, the sun is setting on the horizon, and Lucy is behind with her planting. She’s supposed to have finished all of the peach trees todays, but she still has another forty seedlings to place down, and all of the raccoons and ferrets who were supposed to be helping her have all gone to cool off in the river, too unfamiliar with the concept of heat at all. 

It feels hopeless, and Lucy plops down in the hoed dirt, trying very much not to blubber. She’s fed up with not being as good at this as everybody else. Susan’s taking to being in charge like a duck to water—she’s managed to find her place among the people immediately, and Peter’s always been super graceful and talented and able to do everything, and people forgive him when he makes mistakes anyway, because he always smiles when it happens. And now, even Edmund, who’d had a rough start, is finding ways to make his quick memory and sharp reflexes useful to their new role as Kings and Queens. And although Lucy knows it’s stupid to be jealous of them, because they all love her fiercely and are proud of her, she just wants to be as good as them. She knows she has the easiest task, and she’d managed to screw up anyway, and even though Lucy doesn’t especially want to cry, she feels the hot tears well up in her eyes anyway. 

She sniffles and tries to pat down her face with her apron, but she just gets dirt all over her, and it all feels rather hopeless, until she feels a presence behind her. 

“H-hullo?” Lucy hiccoughs, trying desperately to wipe away her tears. 

“Maidens should not be crying alone, dear one.” says a jolly, sweet voice, and Lucy turns around to see a tall, fat woman with a wide smile and kind eyes behind her. She wears a soft, pinkish-red tunic, and her hair is adorned with a wreath of appleblossoms. Her skin is sunkissed and absolutely covered in freckles, and she smells like pies and fruit teas. “Won’t you tell me your sorrows?”

“Oh, well it’s stupid really...” Lucy says, sniffling loudly, to try and stop her snot from running all over her face. 

“Nonsense.” says the woman, hoisting up her dress so she can comfortably join Lucy on the grass. She slings an arm over Lucy’s shoulders, and Lucy instantly feels a little better, just with her touch. “Tell me, little one.” 

“I’m supposed to have planted all of the trees for this orchard, but I was confused and I messed up at first, I had to collect all the seeds I’d already planted, because they were all too close together, and then when I was ready to try it again, all my friends went away to go play, but I can’t go and play until this is all done, and I won’t be able to finish it all tonight. And I’ll be a huge burden on everybody and it’ll delay Susan’s schedule—”

“Breathe, dear one.” says the kind lady, and she rubs a circle on Lucy’s back. It feels a bit like how it had felt when Mum used to hug her, back in Spare Oom. Lucy can’t really remember her Mother’s face much these days, but something about this kindly woman reminds Lucy awfully of her Mum. 

Lucy turns inwards, properly accepting her embrace, and sobs straight into the woman’s tunic. The woman pats her back and murmurs soothing nonsense towards Lucy until she’s dry-eyed and feeling a little less overwhelmed. Lucy pulls back, and suddenly feels a stab of embarrassment. 

“I’m so sorry,” Lucy says, her voice growing smaller. “I didn’t even ask for your name, and now I’ve got my snot all over your dress...” 

The large woman laughs, a booming, jolly laugh and even though Lucy still feels a bit bad, she’s more at ease at once. “My name is Pomona, little one. I’ve been gone from this land for a long time, and it seems I have taken my time coming back. I should have come to you sooner.” 

Lucy tilts her head to the side, before she realizes suddenly. “Oh! You’re a god! Like Bacchus, right?” 

Pomona nods, though she doesn’t especially look pleased by being compared to Bacchus. “Yes. I am Pomona, goddess of the trees, of growth and of the blooming spring.” 

“It’s so lovely to meet you!” Lucy enthuses, smiling widely. She reaches forward to grab Pomona’s hand within hers, barely able to contain her own excitement. “You’re the queen of the dryads, right? Some of them told me when we first moved into Cair Paravel, they were very excited to see you again.” 

Pomona smiles in return, and she has deep-set dimples in her cheeks. “Not all dryads are under my care. There are a lot of gods who look over the nature and beauty of Narnia, and many tree gods within them! But yes, I am the queen of many dryads, and I am especially queen of fruiting trees and orchards. Which means, I can definitely help you here.” Pomona rises to her feet swiftly, and offers Lucy a hand-up. 

Lucy takes it, and dusts off her apron, to dislodge the small bits of dirt still clinging to her dress. “Thank you for helping me,” Lucy says, sweetly, hoisting up the bag of seedlings in her arms again. “It’ll go faster with two people.” 

“Oh no, dearie. That’s not what I had in mind “ Pomona says, and with merely a twinkle of her eye, the seeds rise from the bags, and each seedling darts across the land, to burrow themselves into the fresh dirt. Lucy watches as they dig themselves deeper and deeper into the soil, and as if Time is moving rapidly around her, the seedlings sprout upwards and upwards, until they are saplings, then young trees, then suddenly change into adult, flowering trees. 

Not just the peaches have been planted, but the cherries, the plums, the olives, the apples, the oranges—even the pomegranates! Every tree has grown up around her, to become a proper orchard. Lucy gapes at the sight in front of her, and turns around to Pomona, throwing herself at her with a flying hug. 

Pomona catches her, with a smug grin, and they romp around the trees, Lucy laughing and exclaiming in delight, as the flowers and pollen mix together above them. “Oh, the animals here will be so pleased! So will Susan and Edmund and Peter, they’ve been so worried about whether this can succeed—but this is proof! Even if we all fail, this will feed so many of our friends!” 

“The harvest in the autumn will be bountiful.” Pomona agrees, gently, and laughs. “But clearly I have been neglecting my duty, as have the other nature gods.” 

“Huh? No, you’re fine!” Lucy says, reassuringly. 

Pomona shakes her head. “You are a Queen, dear one. You must be arbiter and governor, friend and advocate. You were meant to lead by example in all ways to your people, but not to toil and labour like this. You are to learn about your people now, not worry about the Earth. For you to be in such a state over something you are not meant to do—it means we have failed, dear one.” 

Lucy frowns as Pomona reaches forward, to smooth down the edges of Lucy’s rumpled hair. “That feels wrong...we’re supposed to be good at everything..”

Pomona laughs. “Nobody’s good at everything, child. The sooner you realize that, the easier your life will be. You have your own strengths, dear one, and you must understand them and use them. You were not meant to hoe the earth. Your skills are not here.” She turns out towards the wind. “I must away. There is much work to do across the rest of Narnia.”

Lucy clings onto Pomona’s dress, looking away from the setting sun and the last streaks of pink light across the horizon. “Wait! You’re a God though. Don’t you want something in return? Susan says that we have to do the hard work, in exchange for a nice palace like Cair Paravel and nice clothes. Do you want to live in the Cair as well? We have a lot of rooms!”

Pomona’s expression is fond, as she pulls Lucy in for a tight embrace, yet again. “Your kind heart will be your strength, dear Lucy.” she says, sweetly. “No. I will not live with you at Cair Paravel, but I will ask this of you. Every harvest, sacrifice to me the sweetest and plumpest crops from the lot, and I will ensure that the trees will blossom and the fruits will ripen slowly the next year.” 

Lucy nods. “We can do that!” There are a lot of customs and festivals written down in the book in the library. She and Edmund had been reading through them. One more little ceremony won’t be a big addition. 

Pomona laughs, and like that, she is gone, and Lucy stands amidst the beautiful orchard that has grown in her wake. She plucks a few cherry blossoms from the tree, for her siblings to wear, and returns back to the village, heart at ease. 

_2\. The Dying God_

On the first anniversary of Jadis’s death, Lucy dreams. 

She walks amid a giant chamber, cavernous and dark. Her feet squish against the ground, and distantly, she hears the ever-present thrum of a heartbeat. It is slowing, a heartbeat getting weaker with age. The old ancient thing she walks within groans, and shifts, and Lucy almost stumbles. 

She does not fall, however, steadying herself against the fleshy, veiny wall. She is within the world. She is surrounded by a living, breathing world. Even if it is a little scary, it’s beautiful too. 

In the distance, Lucy sees a light and walks towards it, and as she approaches, she notices that the skin grows puckered, reddish and blistered, a cantankerous rot growing from the inside. The smell is almost overwhelming and Lucy covers her nose as she approaches further. 

There are seven figures crowded around something as Lucy approaches closer. They murmur quietly, as if at the bedside of a dying person. 

“It will be soon. It will not hold much longer.” whispers the tallest figure, a man with a perfectly groomed and oiled beard. His eyes are painted all around with black kohl and red lines, symbols that are almost familiar. 

“And when he collapses? What will we do?” asks another woman. Her hair is cropped short, and water drips off her back, as if she has newly arisen from underneath the waves. She too, feels familiar, even though Lucy is quite certain she has never met her. 

“I will do as I always have: look after my own.” says the woman clad all in white, her head that of an elephant. She wears flowers and as Lucy draws closer, she smells the jasmine and lavender that adorn her arms and chest. 

“And of his?” asks a beautiful woman, covered from head to toe in the most ornate, delicate silk that Lucy has ever seen in her life. She turns around, and looks like she almost sees Lucy, but tosses her head in dismissal. “Will you just leave them?”

“And who would take them, Zardeenah? Who would upset the balance? You?” asks the man with the oiled beard. He looks disapproving, and his gaze darts over to the figure in the centre. 

With an eagle’s head, and four arms crossed over each other, the leader of the seven figures is easily recognizable as Tash. He does not speak, simply watches and listens to the sound of the slowing heartbeat and laboured wheezing.

“If I have to.” Zardeenah adjusts her headscarf over her hair, and laughs. “I would not upset anything, if everybody took their fair share of responsibility, though.”

“There is enough trouble during harvest season. I will not deign to it.” answers a curt man, with long hair and a weathered face, covered in pockmark scars and adorned in golden jewellery. “They will simply have to choose on their own.”

“I agree.” says the elephant-headed woman. “Why bother to disturb the balance? They will flock to whoever they desire, and thus balance will keep.”

“There will be sorrow.” Zardeenah says, quietly, and she turns towards Tash. “They will suffer without their patron. Is that acceptable to you all?” 

Nobody says anything, and that is their answer. Lucy feels a sharp spike of anger run through her veins. What sort of people would let people suffer when they could do anything else? What kind of protector could they call themselves?

“Very well.” Zardeenah drawls. “So the ocean foam stills, so the harvest stills in its growth, so the blazing sun burns, so the beauty in the world crumbles, so the autumn wind subsides...At least the beautiful moon is steady and constant.” 

Something subsides. The gods of Calormen disperse and Lucy is left watching the dying thing wheeze away. The rot is spreading, slowly, through the walls. She steps forward and desperately wishes for her cordial to materialize in her hands. But this is not her dream. Nothing comes to her hands. 

“Can’t I help him at all?” she asks into the air, in desperation. 

A cool presence materializes at her side, and Zardeenah is there. Her dark skin is almost black, and yet she shines too, a luminescent glow to her entire figure. “So you are Aslan’s child.” she says, and she looks up and down Lucy once, twice, and nods. “You would be one of mine were you in Calormen.” 

“One of yours?” asks Lucy, and feels desperately frustrated at her own lack of knowledge about Calormen. They have so much to learn about their new kingdom, and Lucy still finds reading hard. But she does so desperately want to learn, even if it is hard and she is young. 

“I am Zardeenah, goddess of the gentle night, the brilliant moon, and the young women who have not yet married. I am a protector of those small things who surface at night, and who cannot subsist under the scorching heat of the sun.” There is a line of silvery kohl underneath Zardeenah’s eyes, and she looks like a vision. Lucy feels the cool chill of the night breeze on her skin, the same feeling she had during the summer solstice festival that extends into the Narnian night, and knows it is the Goddess’s doing.

“What can I do to help him?” asks Lucy, turning back to the old God, whose painthroes are growing louder. 

“Nothing. Even with help from Aslan, you could do nothing. Vilasna’s time has come. With the death of Jadis, the first and last practitioner of Old Magic in Narnia has faded into the ether. Magic, in the sense of the truly unknowable, has faded from this world. He can no longer subsist himself on the meagre prayers of those under his care.” Zardeenah doesn’t look bereaved at this, despite her earlier distress. 

“Oh.” Lucy says. She almost starts on the death chant she had memorized to say at the wakes for their lost friends, before stopping. The memorial ceremony of Narnians is probably not appropriate for Calormene gods. Instead, Lucy just sends a silent prayer to Aslan to make Vilasna’s passage easy. 

“There is no helping him. But daughter of light, there is something you can do to help those who will be empty upon his passing.” Zardeenah says, hesitantly. 

“What can I do?” asks Lucy desperately. 

“Little princess, soon those who perform magic will no longer be welcome in Calormen. Tash has turned his gaze away, they are not to be memorialized and so they will lose all they have. The priests of Tash commune with him and know his voice well. And Tash’s words shine like light to the people of the noble lands.” Zardeenah’s voice is wistful and proud and angry all at once, and Lucy feels in awe by her presence. “Even if I were to speak to my priestesses in defense of the magicians of Calormen, nothing would change. Tash’s words are the beginning and the end.”

“But you still want to protect them.” Lucy confirms. She thinks she knows where this is going. 

“Yes. They have done no wrong except place their faith in a dying God.” Zardeenah says, and her smile is wan. “I have always had too much compassion in my heart towards those who do not pay me any respects. I want you to save them, because Narnia is still a place of wildness.”

“It is.” Lucy says, for the trees and the water, and the world itself is alive and bursting with energy, and is that not at least similar to magic?! “You want Narnia to open our doors to all of the magicians. Of course we will!” 

“It will not be an easy task.” Zardeenah says, her tone cautious. “Vilasna’s people will not trust you. The Calormene Emperor will not take it lightly, your accepting his refugees and banished peoples. And it will bring a great unrest to your kingdom.”

Lucy crosses her arms over her chest and shakes her head. Zardeenah’s tone of voice has changed into the tone of voice she hates most, the tone of voice every adult directs towards her, thinking she’s not capable of understanding anything. “I know that!” Lucy says, loudly and firmly. She doesn’t shout, because Susan’s told her multiple times that it’s a bad idea to do diplomacy by shouting, but she does feel like shouting. “I know it’s going to be difficult. But everything we’ve done has been difficult! And this is helping people. That’s what we’re supposed to do, above anything else. Help people. So it doesn’t matter, really, whether it’ll be difficult or not, because it’s the right thing to do. We’ll figure it out.”

Zardeenah’s expression turns quite surprised for a moment, before she starts laughing. Her laugh fills the living chambers with a melodious sound, and for a moment, the everpresent wheezing slows, and becomes less laboured, at such a glorious sound. She beams at Lucy and it is like Lucy has been touched by absolute radiance for a brief moment. “I wish you were indeed one of my children. Oh, how fiercely I would have loved you!”

“Can I not be your child still?” asks Lucy, tilting her head to the side.

Zardeenah just laughs again, and leans forward, to place a gentle kiss on Lucy’s forehead. It feels a little like a mark, like something about Lucy has permanently changed with that brief touch. “No. That’s not in our futures. But take my blessing, little princess, and go do what’s right.” 

“What will they need, these magicians? To be okay in Narnia?” asks Lucy, for she knows now that everybody needs something different among their feathered, scaled and furry subjects, and she is sure that human magicians will need something different to her and her siblings. 

“Patience.” Zardeenah says, after a long moment. “They will want to grow their own gardens, and they will crave their own spaces. Magic is intensely private in Calormen. They will not integrate well into your lifestyle. If you can be patient with them, and kind...soon they will flourish.”

“I can do that.” Lucy says, firmly. Silently, she makes sure to decree that they pay respects to Zardeenah too and give her their regards as well. To keep the balance of course. 

She turns back towards the dying God, unable to stop the melancholy that touches her heart as she looks upon his dying body. “Will they be sad upon his passing?” she asks, before realizing how silly a question it is.

How distraught she and Susan had been upon seeing the Witch slaughter Aslan on the Stone Table. They had wept all night, and even upon his resurrection the next morning, Lucy had felt the sorrow in her bones. For a God that would not be returning...no, they would be so sad. She must do her duty. She must be there for them, console them, allow them to find joy in the world again. 

“They will mourn him for a hundred days, and a hundred nights, but the grief will linger beyond that, until they no longer remember they were any different. Such is the nature of losing a part of yourself.” Zardeenah says, and she runs a cool hand over Lucy’s head, smoothing down the curls. 

“I’ll try and make it less sad for them.” Lucy says, shutting her eyes. “Even if it doesn’t succeed, it’ll be worth the effort.”

Zardeenah smiles wanly at that, and leans forward to whisper into Lucy’s ear, a last aside before she lets Lucy return to her own dreams. “You’ll meet one of my children in your future. She’ll be hurt and wounded and she will have been hurt by your Aslan, for he does not know how to treat my children, capricious and willful as they are. When she arrives, protect her?”

“Of course.” Lucy promises, because she is Valiant and she cannot wait to meet that new friend. 

_3\. Paralyzing Doubt_

On Lucy’s twentieth birthday, she is kidnapped by Ettins, and sent to be sacrificed to their greatest benefactor.

In truth, the story starts a little before then, however, on a blustery winter morning at Cair Paravel, when Edmund is reading at the breakfast table. He’s only doing this because Susan has gone to visit King Lune for the fortnight. Otherwise, Susan has banned Edmund from reading when eating. Mostly because, while Peter is still trying to drown himself in coffee, Edmund goes ahead and says something like, “Did you know that the Ettins’ rain god takes the form of a giant snake? Most rain gods are birds, you know, but somehow the Ettins decided a _snake_ is the most fitting animal to be in the sky. Maybe because snakes eat people like Ettins do—slowly!” and gets Peter all riled up about Ettins and how he has to go and save the kingdom, all before he’s tied his shoelaces. 

Lucy just laughs at this tidbit, before Peter trips over the doorframe, getting a bruise right on his Most Royal Nose, but she does remember it. 

Which is why, almost eight months later, when Lucy is kidnapped by the Ettins, in a prelude to the eventual Ettinsmoor War (which they win because of Archenland’s intimate knowledge of mountainous warfare strategies—a story for another time), she doesn’t especially panic when they throw her into a pitch-black cave. 

The Ettins have tied her up, but being giants with large hands, they’ve done a rather poor job of it. With a bit of wiggling, the ropes fall right off, and Lucy is free to explore and look around the dark, wet cave they’ve deposited her in. 

As her eyes adjust to the darkness, she notices an awful lot of small tunnels that lead off into the dark mountain pass. On the one hand, one of those paths could be her way out, since the main entrance has been blocked off by a huge boulder Lucy couldn’t hope to push away herself. On the other hand, Lucy’s heard stories of marsh-wiggles getting trapped in caverns that have grown too small, and dying slow, horrible deaths in the dark, so she’s a little more cautious about simply picking one and going down it. 

The biggest problem, of course, is that as Lucy contemplates all of these potential escape-routes, the giant snake has slithered over to her, and is regarding her with beady, yellow eyes, filled with malice. 

“Hullo!” Lucy says, cheerily, trying to hide her discomfit as best she can. Without her sword, her bow, her cordial or any of her armour, she’s especially vulnerable here. But Lucy knows that as long as she can talk, her best defense has not yet been neutralized. 

“You are not afraid.” whispers the snake, its great voice deadly and old. 

“No, I can’t say I am.” Lucy lies, cheerily, and makes a small prayer to Aslan silently, to ensure her safety. “I say, what lovely teeth you have there, esteemed one!” 

“You are trying to flatter me, sssso I will not eat you. Thisssss will not ssssucceed. I am very hungry.” The snake says, quite unimpressed. 

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Lucy says, apologetically. “I’m quite hungry too, you know. The Ettins are rather bad hosts, in general. How long has it been since you’ve last eaten?” 

“It hassss been almosssst a full year.” utters the snake, and it sounds a little more sad? Maybe? Lucy can’t really judge the emotions of this snake. It has large feathers that obscure its back and its body language. She wishes she could see them better, but there is no real light in this cave, except from the serpent god’s glowing, yellow eyes. “They only bring me sssssacrifices in the autumn.” 

“Well, that’s rather mean of them. You should tell them to bring you more food, so when you gain new conversation partners, you don’t have to immediately eat them.” Lucy says, quite sternly, tapping her foot against the ground. “Aren’t you the one with power here? _They_ worship _you_.” 

It eyes her quite irritatedly. “They feed me what they can. They are good ssssservants. They have taken care of me for a long time.” 

“They could probably do better though, right? I mean, I’m not a very good sacrifice, am I?” Lucy says, with a laugh. 

It exhales, looking rather put-out. “No. You are Asssslan’s daughter. I ssssssense hisssss blessssings upon you. You are off-limitssssss.” Lucy’s heart almost relaxes, but then it makes a low noise of annoyance. “Perhapssss I should eat you anyway. I have alwaysssss wondered what a fight between me and Assslan would look like...” 

“On an empty stomach? Having only eaten me? It would go rather poorly, you know. Aslan’s very strong.” Lucy says, keeping as calm as possible. The more she doesn’t think about the fact they’re discussing her own death, the easier this goes. “You’d need more food than just me.”

“And what would you sssssuggest?” asks the serpent god, and she knows that it’s taken the bait. It is interested in the conversation now. 

“Outside, in the Plains, there are herds of buffalo. They’ve grown fat on the dried grass over summer. I’ve seen them. There are hundreds of them. I bet they would be a lot more satisfying than just me, a skinny human girl.” Lucy pinches her arm and makes a mock face of consternation. “Not much fat on my bones.” 

The snake just scoffs. “Bah. Pointlesssssss liesssss. The Wastelandsssss are cold and empty, covered in sssssnow.”

Covered in snow? Lucy’s heart jumps in her chest, as she realizes something. Oh. She might just be able to get out of this. “How long has it been since you’ve seen the outside world, oh esteemed one? Because the world has changed greatly.” 

The serpent god’s eyes narrow and it flicks its tail, rather annoyed. “I have been here, to sssssoak up the warmth of the mountain for almosssssst a hundred yearsssss. The Ettinssss have kept me ssssafe and fed, and in return, I have brought them peace.” 

“Then you do not know that the Witch is dead! The Eternal Winter has ended. My brother Peter killed Jadis in Aslan’s name, and now there is sunlight and warmth, and new animals! The world has changed, esteemed one, while you have stayed here. You might have once come here for protection from the cold, but there is no more cold.” Lucy says, gently, and with as much conviction as she can muster. “Did...did the Ettins not tell you that?”

The serpent god looks at her, with a haughty eye. “You are lying, daughter of Assslan.” 

“No, I’m not. And if you open the boulder in front of this cave, I can prove it to you.” Lucy says, quite firmly. “They’ve kept you here under false pretences. Barely feeding you anything, to keep you weak.” 

For all that the serpent god huffs and scoffs, Lucy knows that the seed of doubt has been sparked in its mind. “All you want issss to essscape and let me starve. I will not allow it.” 

And now for the dangerous part. She smiles as widely and openly and honestly as she can, and hopes desperately that this god has some honour within its scaly skin. “Well, how about you keep me inbetween your beautiful teeth then, when you open the cave entrance? Then, if I’ve been lying, I won’t be able to escape, and you may eat me. But, if I have been telling the truth, you must promise to let me go, so we can go and hunt buffalo together.” 

The serpent god looks down at her for a long time, unblinking and unyielding. For an awful moment, Lucy wonders if it will just eat her, and not even try to do anything else. But she can’t believe that. She has to believe that she will live. She clasps her hands together, and shuts her eyes and believes. 

“...Get in my mouth, daughter.” says the snake, finally, and Lucy almost lets her whole body sag from the relief. Its mouth is large, as tall as the Great Hall in Cair Paravel, and when Lucy steps over the threshold of its mouth, its long tongue wraps itself around her, tightly. Lucy, thankful the god cannot see her anymore, grimaces at the wet, sticky sensation of saliva slowly seeping through her clothes, but does not make a sound. The serpent slithers forward, towards the entrance Lucy had been thrown into, and with but a flick of its enormous tail, the boulder is vanished away. 

The bright daylight is overwhelming at first, and it takes a few moments for Lucy to adjust once more to the light, but when she does, she cannot help but grin. The sky is a perfect clear blue, with not a cloud in the sky, and underneath them, the green-yellow grass of the Plains extends beneath them. In the distance, small black blobs meander through the green, and Lucy knows without a doubt that those are the buffalo herds she had seen, when she’d been riding in the North. Most of all, it is warm, the same heat within the mountain permeates through the sky. 

Lucy laughs, triumphantly, from within the serpent’s mouth. “See?” she says, loudly. “I didn’t lie to you! The world has become so beautiful now.” 

It takes a few moments, but sure enough, the tongue around her middle uncurls, and Lucy is free to step out of the giant serpent’s mouth. Lucy backs out, and turns to look up at the serpent god, ignoring the squelching noises her clothes are making around her. “Well? Shall we go hunting, oh esteemed one?”

The giant serpent’s eyes focus upon her, and there is almost a note of amusement to its gaze. “Sssso unafraid.” 

“My name is Queen Lucy the Valiant of Narnia. Of course I’m not afraid.” Lucy replies, quite confidently, and bows. “What’s your name, oh esteemed one?” 

“I am Kryaga, of the wind and ssssky.” It closes its eyes, and looks up to the sun. “It hasss been a long time ssssince I have felt the beauty of the wild. I wish to ssssoar once again.” 

Lucy feels, as certain as the breeze upon her sin, that Kryaga will not hurt her, and so she clambers upon its back, and clutches onto the feathers, which glimmer an iridescent rainbow under the sunlight. Although the serpent is weak and emaciated, its magic pulls it into the air easily. Kryaga hovers above the mountain range, scanning the world which has changed without it, and Lucy cannot help but whoop with exhilaration as they swirl through the sky, celebrating freedom. 

In their wake, clouds form and start to drizzle a warm rain upon those underneath them, a rain unseen in the Wild Wastelands for several years. 

“I will enact a terrible revenge upon them.” Kryaga says, after they have hunted three buffalo out of the sky. They are curled up by a large lake in the wildlands in the darkness, where Lucy has made a bonfire from reeds and rushes around them. She knows that soon she must part from Kryaga and return home, to assuage her worried companions and siblings. But she had known from the moment they had escaped together, that she would have something yet to say. 

“Upon the Ettins?” she asks, quietly, fingers fiddling together with the braid of grass she had been making. 

“They have trapped me for yearssssss under false pretences. Nobody treatssssss a God that way.” Kryaga says, and furious tears well up in its eyes.

“They have wronged you, yes. They have wronged me too. But I think they wanted to keep you, so they would be safe, protected by their deity. With Jadis dead, they lost one power. To lose you too...I bet they are scared.” Lucy murmurs, leaning her head back against the thick torso of the serpent god, trying her best to comfort it. 

Kryaga scoffs, a fullbodied gesture. “Kindhearted one. You see the best even in your enemies?” 

“Why not? Mercy costs me very little in the end. You cannot always be merciful, but sometimes you can. To have power is to know when not to use it.” Lucy murmurs, inbetween a yawn. “At least, that’s what I’ve always thought.”

“Foolish child. No wonder Aslan loves you so.” Kryaga says, but there is something terribly fond to its tone. Lucy falls asleep to the soft humming of an over-full serpent, and dreams of soaring over a rainbow. 

_4\. Inauspicious Challenges_

Lucy meets the God of Pestilence in the middle of one of the worst pandemics in Narnia history. Plague is not unheard of in the histories before the Witch, but something about the frozen cold of the Eternal Winter had frozen diseases still too. No Narnian doctors had any experience or understanding of this disease, as it spread through subject after subject in the Western Wood. 

As the main healer of her siblings, Lucy has spent the past three days sleepless, administering as much care as she can to the woodland creatures as she can, resorting to her cordial when her patients stray too close to death. She is fighting this Plague back by sheer stubborn force of will, in her makeshift hospital, but even she knows this isn’t sustainable. No disease can be defeated by one nurse alone. 

Susan and Peter have sent for help from overseas, appealing to the doctors of Calormen, Galma, the Lone Islands and Archenland to send anything they know that could help, and their fastest messenger birds have flown out to see if anybody knows anything about how to combat this plague, but Lucy doesn’t know whether they will arrive in time to save enough people. 

She has prayed to Aslan in the back of her mind, but for all the quiet support he gives her, the gentle reassurance that she is doing the right thing, he has not come to save the people of the forest. He is not a tame lion, after all, but Lucy quietly grows more and more sad. She is certain, as the days continue to pass, that too many animals will die. 

It is the dead of night, and her fellow nurses are sleeping, taking a rest that Lucy cannot afford to do herself. As they sleep, Lucy works. 

In the middle of changing out pus and blood stained bandages, Lucy sees him, the God of Pestilence, out the corner of her eye. She almost thinks it is a hallucination from her overwhelming exhaustion, but he is still there when Lucy turns to fully face him. 

At first glance, he looks like he has the head of a buck, with large, towering horns, but spend any closer time looking at him, and it’s clearly a mask. The horns are elaborately decorated and evidently fake, and the facial features on the white mask are crude and underdesigned. There are three red lines marked down one of the painted eyes on the mask, with small drip marks around the eye, as if it had been painted on by blood. 

“Who...who are you?” asks Lucy, her voice wavering. She is not quite afraid, but wary. Something about his presence sets her on edge; every hair on her body is standing on end. 

“You see me?” asks the God, his voice high-pitched and unsettlingly childlike. “How rare.” 

“I’ve seen all sorts of things.” Lucy says, and tilts her chin upwards, despite her tiredness. “Who are you? Are you here to help these people or not?”

“No.” says the God, his tone dreadfully amused. “That’s not what I’m here to do.” 

“Then what?” asks Lucy, turning away to soak some bandages in the laundry bucket, “If you’re not here to help these people, I can’t offer you any time right now. I’m sorry. My priority is to my people first.” 

“I do not need your help either, Queen Lucy. I am here to watch these people die.” says the God, and Lucy turns back to him, in sudden horror. 

“What _are_ you?” she demands, pulling up to him a few, quick strides. 

“I am Anyang, the God of Plague and Pestilence. It is I who have wrought this plague.” he says, and there is a calm neutrality to his voice. 

“What? Why?” Lucy demands, stamping her foot to the ground. “What reason do you have for hurting _my_ people?” 

“You are young. You do not yet understand balance.” Anyang says, and as he tilts his head, the bells attached to his horns rattle, low and wild. “In the end, for all that plague looks cruel, it is a culling that is needed in the wild. Too many predators in the wild, not enough prey.”

He walks over to the bed of a moaning, senseless wolf and almost touches him. Lucy slaps his hand away before he can do anything of the sort, and he laughs, low and amused by her actions. “Look at this one, Lucy. He and his ilk would have culled the entire population of the Western Wilds without this curbing. Now, the system is balanced, once more. Can you deem that as solely evil?” he asks. The cold eyes painted onto his mask seem to bore into Lucy. 

“Yes, because we would have provided for all the animals in our kingdom!” Lucy says, hotly. There are farms and ranches for dumb beasts slowly being established across the land, by centaurs and dwarves, to serve their communities and their friends better. Where one area of nature is suffering, they compensate in other areas. Such is the beauty of having such a arge, cooperative kingdom. It is with hard work and time and patience that the Peensies had built such a Narnia. 

“How? There is only so much meat in this world. Only so much flesh. Now there is less.” Through the mask, his eyes are cold. “Death by plague is just as painful as death by starvation. Now, you do not have to decide which of your citizens die. I have taken the choice from your hands.” 

Lucy shakes her head and prods a finger straight into his pale, white chest. “Don’t try to paint yourself as some sort of saviour! You are nothing but! How can you justify it to yourself like this?! You killed them.”

“It is natural. They will grow strong, or they will die. That is the way of the world.” The voice sounds calm, and Lucy wishes desperately that he was smug or amused or something. It would be so much easier to rage at him were he smug about this. His calmness is infuriating, mostly because of how wrong he is.

“We are more than that. I refuse to accept that!” Lucy says, and she feels her eyes burning with the effort of not crying fiercely angry tears. “As long as we have lived together, we have cared for each other, and helped each other. Strength without compassion is nothing but evil! I refuse to believe this is natural. I refuse to believe this is a good thing.”

“And what will you do about it, Queen Lucy?” asks Anyang, his countenance now, a poised anticipation. “My existence guarantees the Plague. Will you kill me to end this?”

Between their bodies lies Lucy’s scalpel. It is sharp. They are both aware of it. 

Lucy looks away from it, turns her gaze back up to his towering face, the mask that hides the true self. What sort of God hides behind a mask? Someone untrustworthy, someone duplicitous. Not every entity with power is _good_. “Yes. I will kill you, one drop of cordial at a time, one recovered patient at a time. I won’t let you take root among my people!” 

Anyang spreads his arms out, and his horns rattle once more, a sharp sound that rings through the branches of the pine trees of the Western Woods. “There is only so much cordial in your bottle. And only so many places you can be, Lucy. People will slip through the cracks, and they will die.” He tilts his head up imperiously, and leans forward, until their faces are almost touching. “Wouldn’t it be better to simply kill me now? Because otherwise, when you are tired, and depleted...I will be waiting.”

Lucy regards him coolly, and tries to quell the part of her that does want to raise her hand up to him. She is tired. Her judgement is not at its best, right now. The question that she wants to know, _why_ does he want her to kill him? Does he seek his own death? Does he understand the brutality of his own existence, and cannot bear to address it himself, and so is demanding her help to fix it? Or is he attempting to pull her into some sort of trap, tie her to something magical she does not fully understand? 

Lucy has rarely approached her problems with a sword, not until it is entirely necessary. She prefers to talk things out, prefers to believe in the kind nature within everybody’s heart. But there is nothing kind about Pestilence, not when Anyang believes death is a kindness. He does not fundamentally understand kindness. And so, is it not Lucy’s duty to fight him? He’s right, of course, that should Lucy let him walk away, she will be guaranteeing this Plague continues onwards. She is not infallible, and if Anyang redoubles his efforts against her, she may lose several of her precious subjects to a horrible fate. 

Still. She cannot shake the doubt in her mind. Why is he _asking_ her to kill him? Why challenge her like that, unless it is to his own advantage? Simply to frustrate her?

She is tired. She has spent three days tirelessly working. She does not have the capacity to deal with these mind games, so she says what is in her heart. “I will fight you, if it is my only option. I will fight you to the ends of the world, if needed. You do not belong here. I will not tolerate you here. This I swear.” she vows, fiercely, and presses her hand to her heart. 

Anyang takes a step back, and looks almost impressed, for all that his mask shows no facial expression except passive neutralism. 

“Queen Lucy the Valiant. Queen Lucy the Godslayer. Such high ambitions.” He laughs, and it sounds like that of a child. Lucy despises him, in that moment, for such an awful apery of something that is supposed to be sweet and tender. “Well. I wish you luck. Kill me if you can. I look forward to your fight, adversary.” 

And with that, Anyang fades away, leaving only her patients, who fight desperately for their survival. 

Lucy doesn’t scream in frustration, but only because one of the symptoms of the Plague is a heightened sensitivity of the ears. Instead, Lucy takes a moment to breathe outwards, pray to Aslan to help them once more, before resuming her work. There are hundreds of bandages to be changed. She will meet him on the battlefield of the body, and she will win, because she cannot afford to lose. 

_5\. Wedding Tests_

Lucy meets the Goddess of the Ocean off the edge of Felimath, on the eve of her marriage. 

It’s a summer night, hot and sweet, the fireflies linger over the cool grass, and Lucy ponders about the strangeness of this entire process. The first half happens tomorrow, at Doorn’s main port, to satisfy Poerava’s parents and family. The second half will happen in a month, once they sail back to Narnia, outside Cair Paravel, to satisfy the Narnian populace.

Most of Lucy is joyous about this large, lasting celebration. Getting to enjoy two large parties with all of her friends, loved-ones and wellwishers is where Lucy shines—she cannot be anything but happy when in the moment. A very small part of Lucy is terrified of it, though. She has made several prayers to Aslan over the course of the day, and although he has huffed a small, reassuring puff of breath against the back of her neck every time, it has only acted as a soothing balm for so long. 

She worries about the difficulties of being married and never resting in one solid place for a long time. Mrs Red-Tail Hawk had expounded on for several minutes about the importance of maintaining and building a nest together, a place for the couple to relax together and care for their eggs together. And even though Lucy’s confident that _eggs_ won’t be a problem for a long time, she can’t help but worry. Both Cair Paravel and Poerava’s family domicile are shared spaces, not something she and Poerava can truly make their own. 

And more privately, she worries even more about the difficulties of making sure Poerava feels comfortable and happy among their people. Lucy has friends all around her, who need her attention, help and advice. She wonders if between her duties as a Queen and her duties as a friend, she will be able to properly fulfill what Poerava might want from her as a wife. 

The only thing that keeps Lucy rooted to the grassy sand is the thought of Poerava’s smile. She will be beautiful at their wedding. And Lucy cannot wait to see it.

Still, for all that the thought of being able to be married with her wife is a buoyant thought, Lucy ponders over it quietly, feet wriggling in the sand, looking out over the dark ocean, illuminated only by the stars in the sky, sipping slowly from the Faun wine, cultivated by Beruna. It is especially sweet this year. 

It is as she sips from the cup that the ocean starts to churn, slow and steady, a frothing expectant motion. It’s a familiar motion, a signal for the arrival of a naiad, so Lucy straightens upwards, curiously, but before she can properly stand to greet her, the Ocean shifts abruptly. It is not a translucent naiad, formed from the seawater who stands before her. 

Instead, the Goddess of the Ocean towers over Lucy, her skin a deep blue-black, her eyes a clear, rippling green, and her clothes like seafoam, shifting and cascading over her ample body. She is vast, endless and awesome. Lucy is overwhelmed by her presence, at once joyous and terrified. 

“How do you?” asks Lucy, quietly, “It’s an honour to meet you, oh great one.” 

The Goddess laughs, and it is the echoing sound of waves crashing upon the shore. “Hello valiant one. We finally meet in person.”

“You’re Poerava’s goddess.” Lucy says, simply. Poerava, half-naiad, half-human is a strange presence, even in the world of Narnia that is filled with beautiful, magical things. Lucy had fallen in love with her for her blinding energy and her utmost faith in her goddess, a faith that Lucy understood in the strumming rightness of her core. “You’re Hina. How could I be anything but happy to finally greet you?”

The Ocean Goddess settles across the shore, her face broad and smiling. Where she begins and the ocean ends is difficult to tell. They are linked, after all, why should there be an end? “So you are the one my precious Poerava has fallen in love with. You are not what I expected, Lucy the Valiant, daughter of Aslan, queen of the glittering eastern sea.” 

There is something almost foreboding in her gaze at that, and Lucy feels a slight horror. “Did I ever honour you properly, on my first voyage?” she asks, urgently, “We sacrificed the goods of the land to the ocean on my first voyage, but I never properly asked if I was supposed to send you a sacrifice every time. Our naiads are of the rivers and lakes, and they worship different gods. They weren’t sure, you see, and you never came to correct me before.” 

Hina looks quite amused at that. “No, although you might have given me more offerings by tradition, I have never been offended, Queen Lucy. Peace.”

Lucy feels her heartbeat cool, and she settles back on the sand. She’s still a little concerned, as she has been ever since Poerava had first told her of the existence of the Goddess of the Ocean. She had been given domain over the ocean by Aslan, but what does that mean to an ancient, powerful Goddess, who has actual control? Lucy’s subjects are people, not entities, and she hopes that the Goddess of the Ocean understands that Lucy doesn’t intend to ever overstep her boundaries. 

“I’m glad. I would very much like to be your good friend, since you are so special to my dearest one.” Lucy says, sweetly. “Will you drink with me? I haven’t much wine left, but it is sweet and good.” 

Hina accepts Lucy’s bottle calmly, and tips it back, with a murmur of thanks. The wine-red ocean stains her body briefly for a moment, and she looks pleased by Lucy’s offering. “Are you ready for your wedding, Lucy of the Cair?”

Lucy hums, thoughtfully. “I think I am? For all that I am nervous still about the immense change that enters my life with this bond, I cannot wait to spend the rest of my life with Poerava.”

It’s the truth, and yet something about saying it aloud makes it more concrete in her mind. A sense of calm drifts over her shoulder, like a comforting shawl.

“I am worshipped in Calormen also, dear Lucy.” Hina says, conversationally. 

“As Marisla the Restless, yes?” asks Lucy, brightly. She’d known the Calormene also had a Goddess of the Ocean, but to hear they were the same person? How interesting. The Ocean was vast, after all, Lucy wouldn’t have been surprised to hear there were several Goddesses sharing the domain. That was certainly the case within Narnia. Still, it is an example of just how powerful Hina is. 

“Indeed, Marisla is another aspect of myself.” Hina says, her hands unweaving. “An avatar of change, of renewal. When girls turn into women, and dip their feet into the waters of marriage, they turn away from the constant cycles of the moon and towards me. How strange that you, who should join me twicefold, for your marriage and for your ties to my precious daughter, are so distant.”

“Am I not one of yours, then?” asks Lucy, feeling a curious echo of a conversation she’d had once, in a dream. 

“No. For all that you belong to the ocean, you are unyielding. A beacon of light. A testament to your name.” Hina says, passively. “Even if I wanted you to join me, you would not fit. You do not need my protection anyway.”

“No, I don’t.” Lucy says, easily, even though a part of her is saddened by that. Her protection comes from Aslan, her fealty primarily to Aslan. She needs no other, even if it would be nice. “Instead, I ask, if there is anything I can do for you?” 

Hina smiles. “Only a small thing. I ask of you this, why did you choose Poerava as your wife? She is not the most beautiful, nor the most intelligent, nor the most wise, nor the swiftest, nor the most ambitious of my naiads. Why then, were you drawn to her, when there are so many others?”

Lucy feels a deep rage build up within her at those words, at such callous, horrendous words, and she clenches up her fists. “How dare you!?” she says, quite furiously. “She’s so faithful to you, how can you say something so cruel about her!? She might not be as beautiful as another, but she is iridescent with her own joy, and that always soothes my heart! She may not know every fact under the sun, but she knows her duties, her responsibilities and her domain to such perfection—I learn from her diligence every day. She may not always make the best choices immediately, but she learns from her mistakes easily, and does not grow bitter with loss. She might not win any races when she swims, but that is because she is kind enough to wait for those who lag behind. And what use have we for ambition, when we are guided by the light of service and duty? I couldn’t find a better person to love. How dare you! How dare you insult her like that!” 

Hina is silent as Lucy rages against her, and it is only when Lucy stops to take a deep, jagged breath, that the Goddess of the Ocean cuts in.

“How well-loved she is. I had worried when she had spoken about falling in love with a queen. She is just a girl, after all, not a title nor penny to her name. But I rest assured.” Hina says, and Lucy sags a little at the smug satisfaction in Hina’s tone. 

“That...that was a test.” Lucy says, unamused, crossing her arms across her chest. “For a test, that was a rather mean way of going about it.”

“You creatures are most truthful in your anger. If I had simply asked you to prove your love for her, it would have been hollow, now?” asks Hina, a curling roiling turn to the edge of her voice, like the rush of waves. “Forgive me my deception, Queen Lucy. Poerava is one of my dearest companions. I merely wished to see if you were noble in your intentions.”

“Did I pass?” asks Lucy, a downturn to her lips. The beach is darker now, the fireflies have drifted elsewhere, and the snoring of her companions has faded away. All that remains is her and the Ocean. Lucy is only too aware of how small she is, on the edge of a precipice that could sweep her away without any trouble. 

“You love her, yes. But are you worthy of her? That I do not yet know.” Hina says, her voice chill. 

“And how do you want me to prove that?” Lucy wonders, pressing a hand to her face. 

“Have you undertaken many quests, Queen Lucy?” asks Hina, curiously. When Lucy shakes her head, she shrugs, a fluid motion, and continues. “Underneath the waves of this island, lies a giant turtle. He has been slumbering for a great many years, for he frequently tires of our world’s mundanities. In his mouth, there is a great pearl, almost the size of your head. It would be a great treasure for Poerava to possess, something for herself against the backdrop of your opulent castle. If you could convince him to wake, peacefully, and take the pearl from him, I would consider you worthy of her hand.” 

What a strange request. For all that Lucy’s heart instantly perks up at the thought of getting to befriend a giant turtle, a part of her is a little wary. “Can I accomplish such a task in a night alone?” asks Lucy, quietly. “I wouldn’t want to miss my wedding and worry Poerava unnecessarily.”

Hina merely tilts her head downwards, towards the ocean floor. Well, that does seem to be part of the challenge, doesn’t it? The time limit?

For all that Lucy should say no, she can’t help but grin at the thought of it. She is Lucy the Valiant. Most people send her brothers on quests, but Lucy’s blood is singing at the thought of her own. “Will I be able to breathe underwater, with your blessing? I will need to do that.”

“Of course.” Hina says, and with a wave of her hands, Lucy feels the slight change to her being. Very well. 

Lucy strips off most of her clothes, until she is only in a light shift, and wades into the water. It’s not cold, thankfully, the Lone Islands are a tropical place and even though she is a little chilled by the night-air, it is not truly disruptive. Taking a deep breath, Lucy dives under the waves and starts to swim outwards. It is nerve wracking, as her final gulp of air runs out. Her body fights her, it does not wish to breathe in.

But this is faith. It is trusting in the caresses of higher powers. Lucy breathes water, and is well. 

She knows somehow, as well as she knows the ridges of her own knuckles, that there are a series of tunnels through the coral reef that will lead her to the turtle, and so she swims, pleasantly, past the sleeping starfish and octopi and hermit crabs that all call the coral reef their home. It is easy enough to find the tunnels downwards, even under the scarce light of the distant stars, and so Lucy dives. 

It grows darker, the further down she ventures, and Lucy is almost afraid, as the deep black of the ocean at night consumes her, more and more. She suspects that this would be an easier quest at daytime—which is of course, why she must traverse it at night. The primary challenge to this is the fear, Lucy thinks. Someone other than Lucy might be afraid of the Turtle. They might worry about other creatures in the depths here. And although she thinks on the dangers, she also knows that she must not see enemies in potential friends. That is not a way to navigate the world. 

She sinks deeper and deeper, unable to see anything, until finally, she swims straight into a leathery surface. As soon as she touches it, she knows it is the Turtle, for it thrums with how strongly it is alive. 

She pats her way around the Turtle, imagining the anatomy of her smaller friends whenever they come up to surface against Cair Paravel’s beach in the spring, to lay their eggs. She imagines how their legs and arms and faces work, until she has managed to come up to the head of the Giant Turtle, entirely by sense alone. 

“Hello friend!” Lucy says, cheerily. “My name is Queen Lucy of Narnia. Will you awaken for me? I have a request for you.” It’s strange to speak underwater, the water fills her mouth, and for all that she can breathe in it, it is not at all like air. Still, her words are louder in the water, they seem to carry further. 

It takes a few more repetitions of Lucy’s polite, cheerful greeting, for the old Turtle to open one, yellow eye, slow and uncaring. His glowing eye illuminates the area around them, and Lucy finally understands the staggering scale of the Turtle. His face is staggering, almost three times Lucy’s height, and he looks innumerably old. His entire body towers above them, so large it might actually be the same size of Felimath—oh. 

“Your body is Felimath, isn’t it? Your shell?” asks Lucy, delightedly, clapping her hands together at her realization. “No wonder nobody lives up there!” How could you build houses with strong foundations against the frequent typhoons when there was no Earth to dig into, after all? No wonder it was simply a sheep-grazing island. 

The Turtle grunts, passively, eyeing her with a lazy suspicion, and his rumble sends vibrations strongly through the water. 

“Oh, I am sorry to wake you up, and not make my purpose clear immediately. It’s only that I was told by the Goddess of the Ocean that you have a very precious pearl within your mouth. I need to give it to my wife for her wedding, or the Goddess of the Ocean will not approve our marriage. I would very much appreciate if you could give it to me.” Lucy explains, carefully, gesturing with her hands. 

“And what,” rumbles the Sea Turtle, “will you give me in exchange for the Pearl? It is a treasure that I protect, after all. I cannot give it to anybody who asks, even if the Goddess of the Ocean wants it?”

Lucy tries to simply ask what the Sea Turtle wants, but her mouth does not seem to be able to close around those words. Huh. Has she been restricted from asking? How bothersome! What a strange trial. Lucy’s not in the habit of assuming things about people. She much prefers to open her mouth and ask them. When asked politely, most of her subjects and friends tell her the truth about their emotions, and in the cases they don’t, like her siblings, she doesn’t like to guess. She’d tried that initially, but after a few cases of being embarrassingly wrong, Lucy had learnt her lesson. It was much better to just ask.

Well, the Ocean Goddess had told her that the Turtle slept to escape the world’s mundanities. Perhaps she can promise freedom from boredom. 

“In truth, I have very little of worth with me right now! My palace is far away, and I brought no wealth with me to the Lone Islands. All I can offer you is the sweet hand of friendship, and all the exciting stories of our realm. Of our friends and their bright achievements, and the people we have protected and the joyous festivals and parties that have raged across the land.I can tell you of the new customs we have forged together, and old traditions we have revived.” Lucy says, brightly. 

The Turtle huffs, and its large eyes swivel to look at her. “For all that I will appreciate your friendship, Queen Lucy, such stories are hardly of the same worth as this pearl. I have nursed this pearl for a lifetime. Have you a lifetime of stories and companionship to give me?” 

“Of course!” Lucy says, firmly. “I have duties elsewhere, but you’ll always be my friend. My fiancée lives here, and we will return every year, and I will gladly come down here and spend time with you, tell you of my world. If you would like, you could sail with us back to Narnia, where my siblings and my friends would love to meet you as well.” 

The turtle shifts, slowly and it bumps its nose against Lucy, with the lightest of touches. ‘That is a friendship to treasure, but it is not equivalent to the care with which I have taken care of this pearl. If it is only companionship you can offer me, it must be a constant, eternal partnership of a lifetime.” 

Lucy blinks. It’s true, she can’t promise that to this turtle. She has many friends and many duties, many people who she has to tie her time to. Poerava is one of those people, the most important one. If Lucy is to marry her and honour her, she cannot dedicate all of her time to this Turtle. 

Lucy desperately wishes she could simply ask the Turtle what he desires. Guessing alone seems like such a poor way of doing this. “I cannot offer myself, because I already am promised to another.” Even if she can’t ask the Turtle exactly what it wants, perhaps... “So then, what would be equivalent to the lifetime of care you have put into the pearl?”

She is so elated by managing to get around asking a direct question, that she almost doesn’t register the answer. 

“Something you too have put your whole life into cultivating. Your child.” The Turtle’s voice is firm, and Lucy’s heart fills with a quiet horror. A pearl for a child? Why, that doesn’t seem like a commensurate trade at all! 

“You cannot trade away children like that!” Lucy says, and can’t stop her voice from rising in anger. “The pearl, for all that you have cultivated it, is not alive. It does not have feelings and dreams and its own ambitions. No! I will not promise my future children to you. Perhaps yes, one day, one of them will be enchanted enough by your story and your presence and wish to travel with you as a companion, and should they hold your existence in honour, I shall wish them off with joy! But I will not decide for others. I can only offer something of myself.” 

“Then what have you spent a lifetime cultivating? What skills do you know?” asks the Turtle. 

There are many things Lucy has spent a lot of time learning, and developing, but a lot of those are crucial to her kingdom. She cannot give up her knowledge of the bodies and injuries for it serves her people. She cannot give up her literacy or her joy or her knowledge of sweet friendship, nor her faith, for these are all things crucial to her governance. So it must be something not so crucial, but something pleasurable, something she has sunk considerable time into. 

And the answer comes to her, in a vague fuzzy memory, of the time before Narnia. She is in a large hall, with brown arches and beautiful stained glass, surrounded by other girls as they all open their mouths and sing the praises of a distant God. Lucy smiles, sadly to herself. Of course. She knows that among her siblings, her voice is one of the most coveted. Everybody wants Lucy to sing to them on the Festival of the Air, when the birds intertwine their melodies for the world to hear in praise of Aslan’s greatness and the springtime eggs hatching. 

Susan is better at Lucy at a lot of the skills of womanhood: she’s always had a steady hand for painting, instruments and sewing that Lucy has never been able to muster. But the joy of song has always been Lucy’s. 

Lucy opens her mouth and sings a low, sweet lullaby, the lullaby of the wolves. The water fills with the gentle, mournful sounds, and the Turtle’s eyes start to droop, at her sweet song. There will be no more Festivals of the Air. 

“Will this be enough? My singing voice has been one of my utmost prides. I have developed it with care. It is yours, in exchange for your pearl.” Lucy asks, into the silence. 

There is a long pause. The water around her churns, until finally, the Sea Turtle opens his eyes once more and nods, in solemn approval. Lucy exhales, and feels something leave her into the world. Before she can dwell on it for too long, he opens his mouth, large and wide, opening up a cavern that dwarfs Lucy in size. Underneath his tongue, there is a large pearl that is the same size as Lucy’s upper torso. 

Despite its size, it’s light. Lucy can easily lift it in her arms, and kick upwards, pushing it further towards the surface. 

“Thank you!” Lucy calls, downwards, to where the Turtle watches her go. “I’ll return with my wife, after my wedding, and I shall tell you the story of the wyvern we met at the edge of Calormen!” 

The Turtle rumbles amiably, and Lucy kicks upwards, paddling desperately up, past the oral eef and the depths of the ocean. When she finally breaches the surface, pushing her head above water, it’s just in time to see the red sun pushin over the horizon. A dawn on a beautifully sunny day. There isn’t a cloud left in the sky. 

Without the buoyancy of the water, and the low tide along the beach, it’s a lot more difficult to drag the pearl onto the shore. She wades her way up the coast, and wrinkles at her nose at how much sand clings to both her and the pearl, drenched as she is in seawater. Her attendants and friends aren’t yet awake, but they will awake soon, once the sun gets brighter. 

Lucy turns her gaze out towards the ocean. “Was that enough?” she asks, wondering if Hina will answer. 

Briefly, the water that laps along the further edges of the sand, suddenly surges upwards, and ends just short of soaking her toes. In the wake of the wave rests a set of coral jewellery, intricately carved and beautifully made. Lucy picks up the circlet from the sand, and can’t help but smile when she props it atop her head. It fits her exactly. 

_+1: A Conversation With An Old Friend_

On the first day on their return from Narnia, Lucy weeps the whole day, and does not feel the slightest bit ashamed by it. She weeps not only for her poor siblings, bewildered and confused in their old bodies, corralled by orders they have not taken from anybody in almost ten years, but for the people she has left behind. Poerava and their children waiting at home, Mr. Tumnus, who had been expecting her for tea, the Chaplain and the Steward who they’d been planning to surprise with a vacation, her dearest friends and correspondents who were expecting letters from her. 

A world left behind. Almost twenty years of life spent in Narnia, and barely an hour had passed within the Spare Room of Professor Digory’s house. For all that Professor Digory had been very kind and understanding about their disorientation, Lucy had not been able to stop her weeping, and had not wished to. 

She calls to Aslan in her mind, before she falls asleep, clutching Susan tightly as they mourn what has been left behind. 

In the middle of the night, she awakens, a call in her bones. She almost awakens her siblings so they may come with her, but their faces are smooth in rest, and they look so young once again, so Lucy doesn’t disturb them. 

With years of experience sneaking past well-meaning dogs and birds with far better vision and hearing, it is easy for Lucy to move past Mrs. Macready having a glass of port in the front room, and leave the large house. At the edge of the treeline, a glowing red fox awaits, tail swishing. As Lucy draws closer to it, Aslan’s eyes await her. 

“Aslan.” Lucy says, and although her eyes are so dry, although she has no more tears left to cry, her voice wavers regardless. 

“Hello dear one.” he says, and his voice is a familiar, low grumble. For all that Lucy wants to take him into her arms and embrace him, feel his soft fur against her skin again, she does not. She kneels down in front of her and clasps her hands in her lap and looks at him with all of her might. 

“That was cruel.” she says, simply. 

He only gazes back at her, impassively, and Lucy feels a brief stab of anger in her heart. She hates when people meet her heartfelt emotion with a blankness. It is a lack of reciprocity that Lucy has always disliked, and she has never once had this problem with Aslan before, who has always been her closest confidante and friend. He’s never hurt her like this before, not without reason. 

“We had sworn to hold our heads and bear whatever came, once we saw the lamp-post in the woods, but... this? What did we do to deserve it?” Lucy asks, her voice imploring. “We only followed your rules. If we had faltered in some way, why did you not warn me? We would have changed our ways immediately.”

“This is not a punishment.” Aslan says, and his voice is slightly chiding. 

Lucy wants to believe him, so desperately. But how can she do that when there is an ache in her heart than cannot be assuaged? 

His tail swishes and his voice is calm as he continues, “There is much in this land to find beautiful.”

“But that is not why I am angry!” Lucy says, and she shouts, almost too loudly. It echoes through the trees, through the empty sky. She cringes, and turns over her shoulder. Thankfully, nobody in the house seems to have heard it, as no lights turn on. Reassured, Lucy turns back to look at Aslan. “I have always found England beautiful, Aslan. I love everything that has a core of goodness to it, you know this. But the fact is, you ripped us from our homes, from our family, from our friends without warning. Without allowing us a chance to say goodbye. They’ll never know what happens to us!” 

“They know. The dryads watched it happen.” Aslan says, quietly, and Lucy shakes her head.

“How is that enough?” Lucy demands, shaking her head. “They didn’t...they don’t know if we’re dead. If we’re returning. Why we disappeared or where we went. They may search for us on faraway islands and small caves. They may even blame the White Stag, thinking it was his fault. We didn’t get a chance to set things in order. We didn’t decide whether Edmund’s child or my children would get the throne. We didn’t decide on a regent, we didn’t set our orders in affair with other kingdoms—with our friends! I didn’t get to leave anything for my...my children.” 

And even though she has no tears left to cry, she feels her shoulders and her face crumple. She wants to cry. The grief is eating away at her heart. “None of it had to be this way.”

“You had to return here. You could not stay there forever. You are needed here, dear one, with all of your skills and talents, all the life you have lived there.” Aslan says, firmly. “It could be no one else. You are uniquely suited. And you have chosen to serve, over and over again. You will serve here too and find happiness here too.” 

Lucy turns away. “I know.” she says, feeling so defeated. In the future, his reassuring words will warm her, and she will look forward to the prospect of learning to love in England as well. But now, she is weary, and her twenty years of experience do not fit within her nine-year-old body. “But did you need to do it this way? You could have _told us_. We would have come here willingly, we would have settled our affairs and come with only the sadness of leaving behind one adventure and starting on another.” 

“Would you all have come so happily?” he asks, and his gaze is firmly pointed back at the house, where her siblings lie. 

She knows what he is referring to. Edmund’s wife was expecting another child, Peter was in the middle of a courtship that had been beautiful and slow, Susan had been in the process of deciding between several suitors; they had all had people they had left behind. People they might not have wanted to leave behind if given a choice. 

“Do you think me so selfish, Aslan?” she implores. “If you had asked me, I would have convinced my siblings to come. I would have made them come. I have always done what you have advised. Have I not always asked you for help, consulted you when I am alone and lost?” Lucy demands. “First and foremost, I do the right thing, even if it hurts. I would have come, perhaps not happily, but willingly.”

His ears twitch, and Aslan’s close, for a long blink. “I have misjudged you, daughter.” he says, quietly, and his voice is almost regretful. 

It is not an apology, even if it is a statement of fallibility. Lucy is unmoved. 

“Was this always the plan? From the moment you crowned us? Did you mean to bring us back?” she asks, tilting her gaze down towards the grass. There is an ant crawling up a clover, its feelers twitching in the cool breeze. A friend, but no longer a subject. 

“Yes.” 

“Why didn’t you tell us earlier?” she asks. She aches with sadness. It is carving out a space between her shoulders, so it will hang close to her heart. “It would have saved so much trouble. We would be leaving behind so much fewer hurt people.” 

He rumbles, low and displeased. “To do my work here, where it is harder to have faith, you had to have lived fully. You had to have loved and been loved, hurt and been hurt. You would never have opened up and loved Narnia as it needed to be loved, had you known you would have to leave it eventually.” His eyes are calm and non-judgemental. “Would you not have held a shield over your heart? Would you have thrown your all into my people if you had known you would soon leave it?”

Lucy wants to deny it. She wants to say that she would have lived to her fullest—but the more she thinks on it, can she really say that so firmly? She would never have married Poerava, never taken their children from the seafoam, never fallen so deeply in love. She wouldn’t have wanted to hurt her, after all. And then she would not have experienced that which Aslan wanted her to know. Still. 

“Even so. You should have told us to leave. Even if you’d never warned us at the start, you should have let us say goodbye.” Lucy says, quite stern, quite adamant. “You hurt me. You made me hurt everybody I love. I can’t let that go so easily, Aslan.”

“No.” he rumbles, and rubs his head along her knee, soothingly. “You would not be my daughter if you did.” And there is something almost approving in his gaze. “Dear heart, brave heart, I am sorry. I should have trusted you more. In my heart, I thought this would be better for you all. For all that change this is necessary, I did not want to hurt you more than was necessary. I thought that this abrupt parting would be easier.”

“You misjudged.” Lucy says, and the tears finally fall from her eyes again, as she opens up her arms and her lap, and Aslan comes crawling up to her immediately. “You should have asked me, as I have always asked you.” 

“I should have.” he says, quietly. “I am sorry, Lucy, for causing you more distress than I had to.” 

“I understand. Apologize to the others later, okay?” Lucy says, burying her face in his fur. “They deserve an apology too.” 

He rumbles in agreement and Lucy takes a moment to simply embrace him. 

In Calormen, they write endless poems about craving even the vaguest opportunity to glimpse Tash; a mark that stayed with them forever. Lucy, who had frequently had the opportunity to hug her guiding star, wondered how those poets would feel about this moment. Would it be profane to them, the ability to touch that which should be out of reach? 

For all that Aslan is physically close to her now, she feels further away from him now, than she has ever felt before. It hurts. The grief will not easily leave her. There’s something strange, about knowing that Aslan can make mistakes too. Something both intensely angry and painful, and sweet and tender. And for all that she understands Aslan’s decision, she is not sure if she has forgiven him yet. He hasn’t chided her for that yet, though, which gives Lucy the hope that soon she will be able to corral and tie all of her conflicting, hurtful emotions together soon enough. 

“How will they fare? Will Poerava find love again? Will Mr. Tumnus decide to move to the coast after all? Will Cor and Aravis finally agree to get married?” asks Lucy, quietly, running her fingers over Aslan’s twitchy ears. 

“That is their story, dear heart, not yours.” he says, firmly. 

“They would have shared that story with me, just as Susan, Edmund and Peter share theirs with me everyday. Poerava and I tied our lives together. Can I not at least know if she will be happy?” Lucy asks, mournfully. 

He only hums, a purr running through his body and Lucy is left wanting. She wants to believe that Poerava will be happy. But if Lucy is hurting this much, Poerava must be hurting too. She can only hope that it will pass. 

“You know, I’d never understood before, the Galman exhortation of the Ocean Goddess with disaster. I couldn’t think of you in any moment except in joy and light and freedom. I could not find you in anything except beauty.” Lucy murmurs, half-to-herself. “Now I know how to recognize you within pain and hurt. I’m not sure I wanted to know how to do this, Aslan.” 

He looks upwards at her, curious. “Has that knowledge closed your heart to me, Lucy?” 

“No. You know me better than that.” Lucy says, shutting her eyes. “I just know now that every time I interact with anybody, be they God or human or Narnian or animal, I must walk into the encounter open and vulnerable to pain. And I must do it regardless of knowing they can hurt me. That’s faith. Everything can hurt me at any time, but I must do it anyway.” 

It starts to rain, a light, cool drizzle in the night, dislodging the last of the rotten apples from the trees above her. They fall around her like a halo. Lucy feels Zardeenah’s moon shine upon her, Kryaga’s sympathetic caress, the enveloping of Hina’s cool regard, Pomona’s gentle grace, and the Anyang’s smug certainty about the inevitability of pain she could not protect everybody from. 

They all knew about this parting, surely. Was that why they had been so kind with her? Aslan’s daughter, they had called her, and insisted she be somewhat removed from them. 

At the time, she had thought it was because the bond between her and Aslan was so strong, they had felt rude about interrupting, of staking their own claims. Now she wonders if it is because they had not learned the lesson she just had. Of how to approach people wholeheartedly, even when you knew they would inevitably hurt you. 

“You have always been the quickest to learn my lessons.” Aslan says, calmly. “It is why I have held you dear in my heart.” 

“I do not know what to do with this pain yet, Aslan. I thought I had understood pain, but I think I must have only ever felt a shallow pain before.” Lucy whispers. “How can I carry joy in my heart again? I think that grief has carved out a space for itself that happiness cannot fully fill anymore.” 

“Like any other wound, this too will heal. Hold fast, dear one, with the knowledge that it only gets easier from here.” Aslan says, and finally rises from her lap to tread back into the forest. “Sleep, dear one. The morning’s light will make grief an easier burden to carry.” 

He brushes a fox’s kiss against her cheek, and with that parting touch, Lucy lets him go, until the next time they meet. 

She will mourn for a hundred days, and a hundred nights, and the grief will stay within her, until she forgets how it is to lose a part of herself.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic went through at least five different drafts before I finally got this sorted, but I am quite happy with how it turned out. I hope you enjoy it, I sincerely enjoyed getting to spend a lot of time with Lucy while writing this!!


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